"This is going to make Adobe's offering much, much richer for the enterprise market and in competing with Microsoft," Wilcox said. "They'll be getting online conference, eLearning Suite, Captivate and other enterprise-type software Adobe hasn't been able to offer up until now. And this brings a whole new platform to Adobe because Macromedia is already in the cell phone and PDA space with its Flash products."

Adobe is strong with its industry-standard PDF platform, plus its Photoshop and Illustrator offerings. Meanwhile, Macromedia is known for its Flash software along with its Fireworks, Dreamweaver, FreeHand and Studio MX (a suite of those products), among other software programs.

At his keynote address April 7 at Flashforward 2005, Kevin Lynch, executive vice president and chief software architect at Macromedia, was talking all about sharing. He referred to Flash aficionados sharing with each other around code and communitybut it looks like Macromedia will be doing a lot of sharing of its own now.

At the conference, Lynch said Flash player adoption reaches almost 98 percent with every release. "We're the only technology that has that much reach in the world. We're in a great position, and we just keep innovating."

Adobe has just about the same reach with its Adobe Acrobat Reader and the use of PDFs in the industry, according to Wilcox.

For those who work with both companies' products, some concerns will surround which products stay and which ones go.

Danny Riddell, creative director at Metaliq Inc., a development company that works with both Adobe and Macromedia around building innovative business solutions and Web sites, said he's excited at the prospect of the combined company but has a wait-and-see attitude about how the product lines will unfold.

"We're definitely excited for us because we work with both companies now," Riddell said. "Merging both groups of software, like with the video abilities Adobe has and what Flash can do from Macromedia, it could mean better workflow for us. We now use Photoshop and then port that over to Flash. One workflow would be so much better. These two companies together will be powerful."

But, Riddell said, the question is what tools Adobe will pick to keepand will it drop the right ones.

"Are they going to drop products or are they going to be merging products and making a phenomenal product? FreeHand and Illustrator are competitors now, so the question is, will they take the best of those products and create an even greater product, or just brand over? There's great potential there, but will they be doing that? That's our question."

Get Our Best Stories!

This newsletter may contain advertising, deals, or affiliate links. Subscribing to a newsletter indicates your consent to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. You may unsubscribe from the newsletters at any time.